ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701200114
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHICAGO
SOURCE: JOHN O'BRIEN CHICAGO TRIBUNE
When novelist Eugene Izzi was found hanging by his neck from a window of his Chicago high-rise office, suicide was one explanation, but there was plenty to suggest murder.
On Wednesday, 5 1/2 weeks after Izzi's body - along with a police inventory of computer disks, brass knuckles, Mace and a bulletproof vest - was found and turned over to the morgue, the Cook County medical examiner's office wrapped up its death inquiry, concluding that the mystery writer took his life on the morning of Dec.7.
In deciding that Izzi, 43, died by his own hand and not that of an unknown militia assassin, as friends said he feared, the doctor who made the suicide ruling cited what she said was Izzi's fragile mental health and a manuscript known only to him and found on the computer disks removed from his pants pocket.
``I don't know why he killed himself,'' said Dr. Mitra Kalelkar, the county's chief deputy medical examiner. ``He was seeing a psychiatrist. He was paranoid. He was taking medication.''
A spokesman for the Izzi family, including his wife and two teen-age children, did not dispute the suicide finding.
``The only comment we have,'' said fellow author and friend Andrew Vachss, ``is that we hope `rest in peace' means a little bit more to the media now than it has so far.''
Kalelkar, a veteran forensic pathologist, said the story on the disks ``closely mimics'' how Izzi died outside of his 14th-floor office at 6 N. Michigan Ave.
But given the public fascination with the case, it is not clear if her explanation - convincing as it may be to police, who say they can find no evidence of criminality - will satisfy conspiracy theorists.
They say they believe Izzi was murdered, possibly as punishment for infiltrating an Indiana group of neo-Nazis to do research for one of his books.
Izzi had said as much. The disks show that he wrote it too.
According to the manuscript, the protagonist, a writer resembling Izzi, is attacked in his office by militia types. They loop a noose around his neck, fasten the other end to his metal desk and throw him out of his office window, leaving him to twist and die.
But instead of hanging, the manuscript character not only lives but hoists himself up the rope, climbing back into his office. He then grabs a convenient revolver and kills his assailants. End of story.
In addition to the manuscript, Kalelkar said toxicology tests revealed the presence of ``therapeutic levels'' of an antidepressant drug in Izzi's blood, ``meaning he didn't overdose'' but could have had an adverse reaction.
He was seeing a Chicago psychiatrist and taking prescribed medication for depression, she said.
``The entire manuscript closely mimics his own life and that of his character,'' said Kalelkar, who joined the medical examiner's office 17 years ago.
``The way the rope was tied around his neck four times, all of that is described in the manuscript. [It] indicates that his death was premeditated.''
Asked whether Izzi, as some have speculated, accidentally hanged himself while trying to act out a scene in his book to achieve realism, Kalelkar shook her head.
``If you put a loaded gun to your head to find out what it is like to die that way, we call that a suicide.''
Authorities aren't sure how long Izzi was dead before his body was spotted by a tenant in an adjoining building. It is believed he had been there for at least a few hours.
As for the bruised condition of the body, including scrapes on Izzi's face and limbs, Kalelkar said the injuries were consistent with trauma caused by a fall out of a window, not a scuffle, combined with the hanging and subsequent buffeting of the body by the wind.
That Izzi's body gave the appearance he feared something was reflected in the bulletproof vest he wore and objects in his pockets: a pair of brass knuckles and the can of chemical repellent.
As in the manuscript, a .38-caliber revolver was found by police on the floor of Izzi's sparsely furnished office, which had two desktop computers and not much of anything else.
Though he had published his last three books under the pseudonym Nick Gaitano, Izzi had a contract with Avon for three books that would carry his name.
The first of these, ``A Matter of Honor,'' a suspense novel set in Chicago that opens with a drive-by shooting, is scheduled to arrive in bookstores in April.
The Izzi case is Kalelkar's last for a while. She is going on vacation to Las Vegas, taking along one of Izzi's earlier mysteries to read on the airplane.
``It's a copy of his `King of Hustlers,''' she said. ``One of my investigators gave it to me to read.''
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB